"What the heck is this!?"

When the Steel Giant Puppet started turning completely red as if it were a hot iron pot, steam rising from its body, Luluwo instinctively sensed that something was wrong.

Or rather, anyone on the scene who wasn't blind could tell something was amiss!

"Spread out!" Luluwo shouted at the top of her lungs, catching a glimpse of Tami and Berto already making a desperate retreat away from the enemy even before she finished the word. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

Good job! As expected from the team I trained, running faster than me when it's time to retreat!

She took an extra two seconds to toss a portable Magic Shield toward Tami's direction, the pigeon-egg-sized magic tool hit the ground and generated a shield, enough to help those two mitigate some of the impending danger.

Then Luluwo turned and swung her chain towards the high building behind her, the chain wrapped around the structure as if infused with Life Force, pulling her away automatically.

This was much faster than running, so she dared to spend a few seconds to help her teammates, confident she could escape before the explosion hit.

But then, an accident happened.

Even with such a quick retreat, just as her feet left the ground and she had only moved a few meters, her ears were plunged into silence.

No, it wasn't that the world was muted, but the overwhelming sound made her hearing useless in that instant!

The Steel Giant Puppet's body erupted with a violent roaring explosion of force!

Centered around it, the shockwave mixed with dust and sand expanded in a spherical shape, swiftly catching up with Luluwo, her left foot barely lifted before it was hit with excruciating pain.

The next moment her whole body was blown away, and Tami and Berto suffered the same fate!

The Steel Giant Puppet had self-destructed, but not in a conventional sense.

It released the still potent explosives inside it all at once, adding extra power to create a shockwave of both high temperature and pressure!

How did its physical structure accomplish this? Just blame it on Yanor Londo technology!

"Scared me to death, thought I was going to be blown up."

Tami, hit by the shockwave's aftershocks, rolled heavily on the ground for dozens of circles, almost cascading off a cliff. The brick surface he crashed on was cracked by his body, but he climbed up, dusting himself off and wincing with minimal injury.

"Give me a hand!"

Berto's shout came from below the cliff, and Tami quickly ran over to pull him up, noticing his left arm was dislocated – no wonder he couldn't climb up on his own.

"Click—"

Berto emotionlessly reattached his arm, looking as if popping a limb back wasn't more complicated than assembling a Gundam model.

"We underestimated it, didn't fully grasp the Monster's attributes, got tricked." He adjusted his half-broken glasses, saying, "The explosive power just released looked pretty similar to the stuff we threw in. It seems to have used our own tricks against us."

"Yeah, that's right. I saw effects in the shockwave that looked a lot like the Magic Scrolls I tossed in," Tami nodded. Now, he was able to keep up with the analysis speed of someone as experienced as Berto, far from the clueless rookie he used to be.

"Captain, are you okay?" he shouted towards Luluwo, just as he noticed the Steel Giant Puppet was paused after dispersing the shockwave. Though unsure how long it would stay that way, it was a good opportunity.

Being the least injured, he quickly moved towards the Steel Giant Puppet, pulling out a few scrolls from his pocket while checking on Luluwo's condition.

"Hey, what are you doing, be careful!" Berto was taken aback by his sudden action, they'd just experienced the Puppet's explosive backlash, and yet Tami dared to put more fuel into its body?

But he quickly realized Tami, as a standout member of the Skyrim Strategy Group, must have his calculated reasons for such actions, so he didn't say much.

Just as Tami was stuffing a few explosion-attribute Magic Scrolls into the Steel Giant Puppet's joints, Luluwo finally responded.

"I... I'm okay!"

Luluwo was hanging onto the building with one hand on the chain, responding with a bit of difficulty.

"Damn, my left leg is numb."

She didn't dare look at what her lower half looked like after the explosion, thinking if she hadn't wasted those few extra seconds to help others, she might not be in this mess. But, Tami and the others would have had to endure the shockwave.

Thankfully, she had some potions stored on her, she bit the cork off with great effort and poured it onto herself, the potion immediately starting its repair effect upon touching her skin.

"Ah!"

As her body was being repaired the extreme pain from the massive injuries rushed to her brain, eliciting a scream she couldn't suppress.

"Ah... why am I risking my life even here where there aren't so many people rushing the strategy updates..."

Even amid the agony, Luluwo didn't forget to complain.